Managing Heritage, Making Peace: history, identity and memory in contemporary Kenya reflects on national memories and identities in Kenya. It explores how these are disjointed from local and community memories, and how the resulting complexities and challenges of managing and representing such misaligned memories and identities are replicated in contemporary heritage developments. While the book focuses on such developments from the 1990s onwards, the examples and case studies draw on the shared but different historical experiences – particularly colonialism and the Mau Mau uprising – that have shaped and defined heritage projects. Although always simmering in the background, the post-election violence of 2007–08 exposed the fragmented and ethnic nature of politics in Kenya. Within this context, the authors of the book explore some multiple and contested memories and histories in Kenyan post-conflict society, and they examine the roles that both state-led and grassroots heritage projects can play in reconciliation and peace building.

The first chapter, by Karega-Munene, outlines the history of institutionalized heritage management in Kenya and highlights the extent to which the legacies of the neglect of cultural heritage and the institutional control of its definition and representation prevailed after the achievement of independence. In the 1990s, the development of initiatives such as community peace museums (CPMs) allowed for a broader and more flexible approach to cultural heritage at the community level, one that also included subaltern voices and customs. This historical overview sets the background for the remaining chapters, which dig deep into some of the different processes at work at different levels and the apparent reclamation of ownership of cultural heritage in Kenya by civil society since the 1990s, particularly through the CPMs.

In Chapter 2, Annie E. Coombes reflects on some of the ways in which local communities are engaging with the past. Taking the examples of two CPMs – the Lari Memorial Peace Museum and the Agikuyu Community Peace Museum – she explores the different and conflicting histories of Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion, and the different community approaches to representing and managing such pasts. The importance of place and space is apparent in Coombes’ chapter but is more integral to Lotte Hughes’ examination of the heritage activities around Karima, a small forested hill on the edge of Kenya's Aberdares Forest (Chapter 3). This examination describes the complex political, social, historical, cultural and environmental origins and contexts of Gikuyu indigenous claims for land. Furthermore, it highlights the role played by multiple actors at multiple levels in shaping the narratives of the process, and how claimed heritage and claimed place are influenced and defined by each other.

Although local and ethnic versus state and national remains a common theme throughout the book, Chapters 2 and 3 focus more on local initiatives, memories, histories and identities, while Chapters 4 and 5 expound on these processes at the national level. Much of Coombes’ chapter (Chapter 4) on public commemorative strategies in Kenya covers areas that have been written about and investigated elsewhere, particularly in relation to the official commemoration – or, until recently, lack thereof – of Mau Mau. Nonetheless, the book would not be complete without it. In addition, the chapter includes a section on alternative monuments and memorials that prioritize process over the end product, thereby providing the scope to offer proposals on ways to ease commemorative tensions between the local and the national, particularly in the context of conflict and peace building. Hughes’ discussion in Chapter 5 on the production and transmission of national history in Kenya suggests that, at the national level, culture has been substituted for history as a refuge from a highly politicized, charged and fraught Kenyan history. In the tug of war between the local and the national, however, it is evident that ordinary Kenyans identify more with the local – in terms of citizenship, identity, memory and history – and that this in turn is highly ethnicized.

In all, while the broader themes do not really offer any surprises on the ethnic and contested nature of memories, histories and identities in Kenya, a core value of the book is the insight it provides into heritage initiatives driven by civil society and the issues that emerge at that level. Although long-winded at times, the narrative writing style draws the reader into first-hand accounts and uncovers invaluable and personal insights into real experiences on the ground. That a central theme throughout the book is the Mau Mau uprising reinforces the dominance of this liberation struggle in both national and local histories, memories and identities. But perhaps of more interest are the implications of managing heritage as a means of peace building in a post-conflict society. It is evident that Kenya is still grappling with this and with a way of bridging the gap between national and local. To this effect, Managing Heritage, Making Peace is a book that would be of interest to a wide audience, not only scholars of Kenya, but also those interested in memory making, commemoration and identity more generally. It is a powerful book for its reflection on memory in a post-conflict society.